Call for Panels

Proposals must consist of:
- a panel title
- the name/s and email address/es of panel convenor/s
- a short abstract of fewer than 300 characters
- a long abstract of fewer than 250 words

All panels must have at least two convenors and they may be postgraduate students. The proposal may also include the names of any chairs or discussants [please use the convention of Firstname Lastname (Institution)], although these can be added subsequently using the login environment. If these roles are to be taken by convenors, there is no need to enter your own names there, as it is implicit that this will be the case where other names are not listed.All proposals must be made via the online form, not by email.

Following on with the interest in laboratories at previous ASA conferences, we will provide spaces for producing and presenting ethnographic works that depart from the convention of the text-based presentation. The Call for Laboratories will open on the 4th of March.

Rules

Due to the competition for time and space within such a conference, colleagues are allowed to convene no more than one panel or lab and present only one paper during the conference (convenors may present a paper - either in their own panel or another). This does not prevent you from making multiple proposals, but in the case of multiple acceptances we will ask you to make a choice.

The ASA requires all accepted panels to be open to paper proposals through the website; you may of course propose a panel with specific contributors in mind, but when the call for papers opens, you should be open to the possibility of other contributions arriving via the open call.

Panels convenors and paper presenters need not be members of the association. However, the ASA welcomes new members (see membership page). Members of the association and of WCAA sister-associations can register for the conference at a discounted fee.

The Call for Panels' process

On submission of the proposal, the proposing convenor (not the co-convenors) will receive an automated email confirming receipt. If you do not receive this email, please first check the login environment Cocoa (click login under the horizontal navigation bar) to see if your proposal is there. If it is, it simply means your confirmation email got spammed/lost; and if it is not, it means you need to re-submit.

Proposals will be marked as pending until Scientific Committee decisions are publicised on March 1st. On that date proposals will be marked as accepted/rejected and the conference administrators will inform you of the decision.

Useful information for later in this process

The Call for Papers and Labs will open on March 4th and end at 23:59 GMT on 8th April.

Length of panels

Panels may not last for more than a single day. Each day will have a maximum of three 90-minute panel sessions, each of which may hold up to four papers. This means that convenors should accept no more than 12 papers.
Conference administration will work on rehousing the paper proposals marked 'transfer', and we will get in touch if this affects your panel, before registration opens.

Controlling/editing your panel

Panel convenors can use the login link in the menu above to edit their proposals. Later, when panels have been accepted/rejected, convenors are requested to administer their panels via this login environment. Convenors should log in to state any specific timing requests for their panel (when directed to so by the conference administrator), to add the names of chairs/discussants, and to manage the paper proposals.

Co-convenors cannot be added/removed nor can panels be withdrawn through this environment - please email conference(at)theasa.org to do this.

When papers are proposed via the website, they will be proposed to specific panels. Convenors will receive a summary email of the proposal. Convenors are welcome to acknowledge proposals by email, and even to ask contributors to edit their abstracts by logging in themselves.

When the call for papers is over, convenors must indicate their decisions about whether to accept/reject/transfer proposals through the login environment. If an author later emails to withdraw their paper, the convenors should mark the paper as 'Withdrawn' in the login environment, otherwise the conference administrator may not know of the withdrawal.

The papers can be placed in order via the login environment, and this should be done once decisions about all papers have been made.

Pre-circulation of papers

The ASA has no rule about this but many convenors are keen to pre-circulate completed papers. To facilitate this and save on loads of email traffic, authors can upload a PDF of their paper within Cocoa, and it will then show as a downloadable file beneath their abstract on the public panel page on this site. It is your choice whether you instruct your presenters to make use of this.

Timing of presentations

How you allocate the time in your sessions is largely your decision. The ASA norm is to allot each presenter a maximum of 20 minutes (for presentation and questions/discussion). The key is to respect the fact that many presenters have travelled a long way in order to be able to contribute and clearly need time to set out their argument.

Communication between authors/convenors

Convenor/author email addresses are not shown on the panel pages for anti-spam and privacy reasons reasons. However, there is an in-built secure email messaging system. If you cannot work that, please email conference(at)theasa.org to obtain the relevant email addresses.

If you have any further enquiries about the conference please contact conference(at)theasa.org.